Questions to Ask About Reading
Twenty questions about books and reading habits for book clubs, first dates, long journeys and anyone who wants better answers than a list of titles. They start easy and get more revealing as they go.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What are you reading at the moment?
Why ask it
The easiest opener and the one most likely to produce something honest, because it does not ask anyone to defend a favourite. Note whether they name one book, three at once, or admit they are stuck partway through, since each of those is a different kind of reader.
How did you end up with that one?
Why ask it
The route to a book says more than the book does: a gift, an algorithm, a friend's insistence, a display table. Ask this early and you learn how to give them a recommendation they will actually read.
Where and when do you actually read?
Why ask it
Almost everyone reads in one specific slot, on a commute, in bed, in a bath, at lunch, and that slot decides what they can read. Someone reading ten minutes before sleep genuinely cannot manage a dense novel, which explains a lot about their taste.
Paper, screen or audio, and does it depend on the book?
Why ask it
The interesting part is the split. Many people use audio for non-fiction and paper for novels, or screens only when travelling, and the reasons they give are usually about attention rather than convenience.
Do you finish books you are not enjoying?
Why ask it
This sorts readers more sharply than genre does. Finishers tend to read fewer books more thoroughly and feel guilt about abandonment; abandoners read more widely and are franker in their opinions. Either answer opens onto the book they gave up on most recently.
What is the last book you recommended to somebody?
Why ask it
Better than asking for a favourite, because recommending involves picking for another person and people remember doing it. The follow-up worth asking is who they recommended it to and whether that person read it.
Is there a book everyone seems to love that you could not get on with?
Why ask it
Permission to dislike something popular usually produces the liveliest answer of the conversation. It also reveals what a reader will not forgive: slow openings, cruelty, cleverness, sentiment.
Which book have you read more than once?
Why ask it
Rereading is a stronger signal than admiration, since it costs time someone could spend on something new. Ask what is different on the second reading and you often get the most personal answer in the set.
Is there a book you own and fully intend to read but have not?
Why ask it
Everyone has one, and the specific book reveals the reader they would like to be. This is a gently funny question rather than an accusatory one, so it works well early with people you do not know.
What did you read as a teenager that mattered at the time?
Why ask it
Adding at the time removes the need to defend the book's quality, which is what makes people willing to name it. What was going on in their life when they read it is usually the real subject.
Which book made you laugh out loud in public?
Why ask it
The specificity of in public gets a concrete memory rather than a general claim that something was funny. Comic taste is also unusually revealing, and it is a good question to ask after a run of more serious ones.
Has a book ever changed your mind about something?
Why ask it
Push past yes to what they thought before and what they think now. Many people find they cannot name the change, which is worth noticing, and those who can usually describe an argument they resisted at first.
Do you write in your books or keep them pristine?
Why ask it
A small question that reliably starts an argument at a table of readers. Underliners and preservers treat books as tools or as objects respectively, and both will explain themselves at length.
What do you do with a book once you have finished it?
Why ask it
Keeping, lending, giving away or reselling reveals whether a book is a possession, a message or a transaction. It also tells you whether lending them one of yours is a good idea.
Is there a subject you keep reading about without meaning to?
Why ask it
People often notice a pattern here for the first time as they answer: shipwrecks, monasteries, one particular decade. The unplanned preoccupation is usually more interesting than the favourite genre they would have named.
How do you feel about the books you were made to read at school?
Why ask it
Answers split hard between gratitude and lasting resentment, and the resentment often explains an adult avoidance of whole categories of fiction. Ask whether they have gone back to any of them since.
Do you remember what you read, or mainly how it felt?
Why ask it
Readers are often quietly embarrassed about retaining little, and saying so out loud is a relief. The answer also predicts whether they enjoy discussing plot or atmosphere, which is useful for the rest of the conversation.
Is there a book you regret reading?
Why ask it
Rarely asked, and it produces something genuine: a book that was distressing, or a waste of a month, or one that spoiled a writer for them. It is a question for later in the conversation once dislike has already been made safe.
Has your reading changed in the last few years, and do you mind how?
Why ask it
Most people are reading differently than they used to, usually less or in shorter bursts, and they have feelings about it. The second clause invites honesty rather than a defence of their own habits.
What would you want to read if you had a completely free week?
Why ask it
A good closing question because it is hopeful rather than evaluative, and the answer is almost always specific: a long novel, a reread, a series they have saved. It also tells you what to give them at Christmas.
Talking about books without turning it into a quiz
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Making it a conversation
Start with current, not favourite
Asking for a favourite book puts people on the spot and produces a defensive or rehearsed answer. What are you reading at the moment requires no self-justification and almost always leads somewhere better.
Ask about habits as well as titles
Where someone reads, whether they abandon books, and what they do with them afterwards produce livelier answers than lists of authors, and they work even with people who read very little.
Make dislike safe early
Say what you could not finish before asking them. Once one person has admitted giving up on something acclaimed, the conversation stops being a display of taste.
Answer your own questions
This set works as an exchange rather than an interview. If you ask about the unread book on the shelf, name yours first.
Adapting to the setting
- In a book club, use the questions about rereading, changed minds and regret, which produce disagreement worth having.
- On a first date, stay with current reading, format preferences and school books, and skip anything that sounds like a test.
- With someone who says they do not read, ask about audiobooks, what they read as a teenager, and what they read that is not books.
- With a child or teenager, ask what they abandoned and why, since permission to dislike a book does more for reading than praise does.
- In writing, over messages or email, these work better one at a time than as a list.
What goes wrong
Treating volume as virtue
Asking how many books somebody read this year turns reading into a scoreboard and shuts down anyone who reads slowly. Nothing in this set needs a count.
Correcting their reading
Suggesting the better book by the same author, or noting that the film was different, ends the exchange. Ask what they liked before offering anything of your own.
Dismissing audio or genre reading
A quiet hierarchy about formats and genres is the fastest way to make someone stop telling you what they actually read. Take romance, crime and audiobooks as seriously as anything else.
Asking twenty questions in a row
Three questions with real follow-ups beat the whole list. Pick the ones that suit the person in front of you and let each answer wander.